This is one of the factors that compelled us to write Salmon Wars. Honestly, smart people have no idea about the environmental harm caused by open-net salmon farms or the potential health risks from eating fish that might contain contaminants. We were surprised, and continue to be surprised, by how little people know about the salmon they’re buying in markets or eating in restaurants. We have spent our careers investigating and reporting for newspapers, government and law firms. About 400 other people crowded into the community hall and spilled into the corridors that day to hear warnings from environmentalists, lobster fishers, businesspeople and ordinary folks. A group called the Twin Bays Coalition had sounded an alarm about plans by two multinational salmon-farming companies to locate more than 20 new open-net-pen farms along our coast.īy then salmon farming had grown into a $20 billion industry, and so had evidence of environmental damage from open-net farms. In January 2020 we went to a public meeting in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, a few minutes from our home. In fact, it could represent a new threat to wild salmon.ĭoug Frantz: Fast forward a couple decades. But they realized quickly, as the trash piled up on the shoreline and the eel grass on the seabed below the farm died, that the new technology was not the answer. They hoped that aquaculture might take some of the pressure off the dwindling numbers of wild Atlantic salmon. Our view of salmon farms was shaped initially by a small farm that we saw go into the water not far from my parents’ cottage on the South Shore of Nova Scotia in the early 1990s. Sadly, our children have never known that pleasure. For years wild-caught Atlantic salmon was served for special occasions at our house. That said, we do have connections to the topic that not everyone will have. Instead, we’re like our potential readers - simply people doing our best to eat healthy and responsibly. In an interview with The Revelator, Collins and Frantz explain the threats posed to wildlife, what happens to scientists and activists who challenge the industry, and whether land-based salmon rearing is a better alternative.Ĭatherine Collins: Salmon Wars may seem like an odd topic for us because neither one of us is an angler, a marine biologist, or even an environmental activist. Here’s one: Sea lice on farmed salmon can number in the hundreds on a single fish, “so numerous that at some fish-processing plants workers use Shop-Vacs to remove them from incoming salmon.” There are more than a few descriptions in the book that may leave readers with searing mental images. Ĭollins and Frantz, who are also the authors of several other nonfiction books, write about how salmon farming exploded into a $20 billion industry and why that threatens wild salmon, coastal ecosystems and unsuspecting consumers. The result is their newly published book Salmon Wars: The Dark Underbelly of Our Favorite Fish. It led the two investigative journalists to take a deep dive into the salmon-farming industry and its dirty business. For Catherine Collins and her husband Douglas Frantz, that was a photo of a yardstick plunged 32 inches into filth below a salmon farm near Port Mouton, Nova Scotia. Sometimes all it takes is a single photograph to change someone’s mind or inspire them to take action.
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